Food Fight
by girl undone
Summary: Commander Shepard and her crew spend what might be their last meal together in the mess before the Omega-4 Relay. A game of wishful eating ensues, pegging the Commander's taste buds against her crew. Rated for swearing and mentions of 'ingestion'.


"A hot dog."

Commander Rachel Shepard closed her eyes for a moment. She was attempting to make what was left of her crew forget that they were travelling through the Omega-4 Relay, most likely never to return. With everyone gone, from the naively-cheerful Yeoman Kelly Chambers, the cool and collected Dr. Chakwas, and the 'evil genius' Mess Sergeant Gardner, Shepard rounded up everyone on her team, with the exception of Legion, who was inorganic and did not require sustenance, and demanded they eat their protein packs together and play a game very old in Earth military tradition: "If you could eat anything in the galaxy right at this moment, what would it be?"

She sighed. She tried to get along with Jacob, really she did. She tried to explain she wasn't interested, only to be affronted by xenophobic remarks. Then he seemed to be mocking her every time he said her name. "Shepard." Sarcastic-like, drawing out the 'sh' sound. It really didn't help that she found him as interesting as a crate. Still, this might be the last night he was alive and she was alive. She was going to make the effort.

"Jacob, I didn't say 'imagine you were at a carnival'. I said, "Imagine you can eat anything in the galaxy. Anything!"

"A hot dog, Shepard." There it was again. That sarcastic tone in his voice. She looked to Garrus and Joker for confirmation, but both men seemed too engrossed in her question to pay any attention to her. _Hmph. Typical. _

Shepard leaned forward, putting her hands on the table. "Okay, so, basically, your last meal would be varren snout and pyjack tail in a synthetic casing, because I'll bet you didn't consider to order a Kosher frank. And let me guess- you like it Chicago-style." She said the last with so much disdain; her remaining crew looked on in surprise. Who knew Shepard was so picky or territorial about her food?

"Hey, what's wrong with Chicago-style?" Jacob stared at his Commander, wondering where her ire was coming from. "Varren snouts and pyjack tails?" Tali echoed, sounding disgusted. "Sometimes I'm glad all I can get here is nutrient paste."

Shepard jabbed a finger at Jacob. "Chicago-style is so completely wrong that I can't even find the words to describe how awful it is. It's like saying you want mayo on your pastrami!" She sat back, arms crossed, disgusted. She turned to the non-human members of their crew, "They use a _boiled_ hot dog and cover it in mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, pickled peppers, and celery salt. You can't see the hot dog for all the garden! It's vile!"

Her non-human crew looked at her in bemusement. They'd follow her into hell, but her mind? Not so much.

Miranda smirked a bit at her former project and current commanding officer. "I assume that you would prefer a kosher hot dog New York-style because of your upbringing?"

"No!" Shepard snapped back, much too quickly for anyone who truly didn't care. "It's just proper that a hot dog to be an all-kosher beef frank, not mystery meat, and cover in deli mustard and sauerkraut. Anything else is a crime against nature." She all but sneered at Miranda. "Regardless, I hate hot dogs, but you should know that, along with my bra size and when I got my firs per-"

Joker jumped in, waving his hands frantically. "Gah, no, Commander! None of us need to know that!"

Shepard grinned at Joker, too far away to tug off his baseball cap. She held out her hands, "Please?"

"No."

"Aww, c'mon, just for a minute."

"Do you know how many vertebrae I probably fractured saving this ship?"

"And I love you for it! Didn't I stand up for you?"

Miranda made a derisive noise. Jack mocked, "Cheerleader got mad at you because EDI's fucking blocks are off?"

Joker grinned at Jack. "Yeah, but she isn't so bad, you know." He turned his grin to Miranda. "I mean EDI, of course."

Miranda threw up her hands in annoyance. "I still don't see why you insisted we all eat together, Commander. Some of us might have liked this time to reflect."

"You just like staring at your own reflection, princess." Miranda glared at Jack, then appealed to Shepard with a look.

Shepard ignored Miranda's pleas completely. "Jack, I won't reprimand you if you take Joker's cap and toss it to me."

"Commander, hey! Ow, Jack! I'm fragile! Very, very, fragile!" The pilot rubbed his neck from the force the ex-con used.

Miranda shook her head in disgust.

Shepard grinned and shoved the SR2 cap on her head. "Don't misuse Joker like that, Jack. We need him to get us through hell." Jack snorted. "He's just being a pussy." But she did give the pilot the quickest look of concern.

Satisfied, the Commander fixed her gaze on Miranda. "Lawson. Tell me what you would eat as your last meal."

"That's rather macabre, even for you, Commander. There is a chance we will all survive this."

"Right, Miranda, because why else would The Illusive Man have wasted four billion credits on me and not have bought a villa on Bekenstein instead. Now c'mon. Play along. That's an order."

Miranda sighed heavily. "Braised abalone with webbing from duck's feet and chilled Domaine Guy Amiot et Fils Le Montrache white burgundy, 2139."

Everyone at the largely empty mess table cringed. Shepard thought she heard gagging. She tried to capture Thane's monk-like position, her hands steepled together, leaning her chin on fingertips, careful to avoid sticking her elbows into her food, or anyone else's. "You mean you want sea snails and ducks feet with an old bottle of white wine as your last supper? G-d, Miranda, I didn't ask you what you'd order on your first date with a wealthy widower. I asked what your favourite food was."

Miranda looked affronted. "I happen to be quite fond of that dish. It's from a very famous restaurant in Sydney."

Jack and Joker were laughing hysterically, repeating 'webbing from duck's feet' in falsetto Australian accents to each other.

Shepard gave up her pose to pass a hand over her face. "Fine, fine. So, we've got a mystery-meat hot dog with garden on top and sea snails and ducks feet. Joker, throw me a line here!"

Garrus abruptly laughed at that. Shepard shot him a dark look from under Joker's baseball cap. He quickly assumed the most serious face he could.

Joker stretched his arms out, unaccustomed to being out of the pilot's chair, around people, and without his cap. "Aw, you know what I like Commander."

"Of course I do. But cleanse my palate. Talk dirty to me."

There was nearly a collective case of whiplash as the entire crew looked back and forth between the pilot and the commander. They were grinning at each other, though, not the least big suggestively. Garrus muttered something about 'human expressions' that Tali and Grunt agreed with emphatically. Thane remained obtusely silent.

"A big, juicy Angus hamburger."

"Mmm.."

"Medium-well. Just pink on the inside.."

"Oh yeah."

"Covered in tomatoes and lettuce.."

"That's it."

"With cheddar and bacon..."

"Oh yeah, that's it, c'mon!"

"_Keelah_," Tali whispered to herself. Garrus looked mortified and distressed. Everyone else staring at the Commander, agape. _Was she..? _

"Smothered in mustard..."

"Oh yeah, that's it, that's-"

"And mayo."

Shepard's expression went from bliss to disgust in an instant. "_Mayo_? _Mayo?_ How could you ruin my foodgasm like that? Ugh!" She flicked his cap off and threw it at him, purposely not aiming for his face.

Joker grinned his widest, catching the cap in his lap and securing it on his head. "I was just messing with you."

Shepard sneered at him like she was about to unload a round into him. "You know how much I hate mayo. Ruining a bacon cheeseburger like that is just _cruel._"

Mordin, Samara, and even Thane were still staring wide-eyed (or more so, in the case of the salarian doctor and the drell assassin) at their commander and her recent display of, er, affection. "Interesting. Hormone levels normal. No stimuli or erogenous zones used. Climax falsified?"

Zaeed let out a low whistle and Kasumi laughed up her sleeve. "That's wot 'uman women do, doc," the mercenary said. "Fake 'em all the time."

Now Garrus looked affronted. "They do?" he demanded.

Shepard slammed her head on the table and muttered something unintelligible. She sat up again and explained calmly, "I was kidding around. Obviously it takes more than a bacon cheeseburger-" she needed to change the subject and quickly. "What about you, doc? What's your favourite food?"

Mordin looked non-plussed for a moment. "Have none. No need. Protein packs give sufficient nutrients."

Shepard narrowed her eyes slightly. First the arguments about the genophage, then the intrusion on her sex life... Was the salarian doctor simply getting his kicks on her? "Seriously Mordin? You don't care if it your food has any actual taste?"

The doctor just shook his head. "Not necessary."

The Commander leaned back in her chair, tilted it at a precarious angle on its back legs. "Oooo-kay then. Jack! What about you?"

The ex-convict leaned across the table with the grace of a panther. "Steak. Rare. I want it to fucking bleed every time I bite into it." She licked her already-painted-red lips.

Shepard let her chair settle back on all four feet for a moment before she balanced back on the two legs ago. "With mashed potatoes?"

"Hell, yeah!"

Shepard awarded her with a smile of approval. "We're good then. What about you, Kasumi? I know you like ramen, but that can't seriously be your favourite food."

Kasumi smirked under her hood. "I also like beef-cakes," she said in the direction of Jacob, who didn't seem to notice. He still didn't understand why the Commander was so angry with him. And over a hot dog! Miranda glared at the Japanese thief.

Shepard waved her hand, "Yeah yeah, but actual food, not something to lick after dessert."

Miranda gave an irritated huff and Jack cackled with glee. All the men, with the exception of Mordin looked decided uncomfortable at the Commander's words. They weren't to be used as playthings! Well, unless Shepard was interested...

"I think I would have to choose _nigirizushi._" Shepard waited for Kasumi to explain, but when the cloaked figure didn't, she held up her hands in defeat. "I give. I've never been one for raw seafood. What is it?"

"Oh, it's rice balls with _wasabi_- that green mustard you liked at the ramen stand- with salmon or tuna and wrapped with pieces of octopus or squid or eel."

Shepard was completely silent for a moment. She liked Kasumi and didn't want to mock her choice lest she appear biased against Japanese food- or people, for that matter. "I, uh, had octopus once."

Kasumi leaned forward, genuinely interested. "Oh! Did you like it, Shep?"

"I did until I knew what it was."

Joker laughed the hardest.

"Moving on!" Shepard said above the din. "Massani! When you aren't gunning people down, what do you like to eat?"

"I ain't gonna say nothin' fancy. I guess y'could say Shepherd's Pie, but you can't get a good one 'round these parts. 'ell, y'can barely get it back on Earth."

Raucous laughter erupted for the humans in the mess. Shepard, still never the blusher, glared at Zaeed. "You just picked that because of the name, didn't you?"

Zaeed's eyebrows lifted as the correlation was made in his mind. "Nah, I didn't!" Then he leered, "But now that'che mention it-"

Garrus growled, but the merc just chuckled. "Y'ave him on a tight leash, dontcha?"

The turian started to stand up, but Shepard put a vice-like grip on his arm. "Officer Vakarian, what wonders does Palavan give the taste buds?"

He resumed his seat, turning away from Zaeed. Shepard knew how to get his attention. 'Officer Vakarian' indeed! She only said it in _that_ tone when they were alone. "Well, you know, dextro-amino food isn't like yours."

Everyone but Tali's eyes fixed on his blue jelly protein pack. "But it's so… sweet," Shepard nearly purred.

Joker groaned and Jack made gagging sounds. "Shut up, you two. I want to hear about turian cuisine."

They both sniggered. Joker whispered to Jack, "That article in Fornax about dextro-based sapient life and sugar must be true!" Jack retorted, not to be out-done, "I could've told you that." The pilot raised his eyebrows in admiration at the tattooed woman.

Garrus, for his part, was trying hard not grin. "Well, there's this one dish I always liked. It's a stew. I don't think it has a name that would translate, but it's very salty to us. I love salty things."

Joker and Jack cracked up again. Shepard was grinning like an idiot, but waved her hand at them. "What are you two, four? Not everything is an innuendo."

"Then wipe that shit-eating grin off your face," Jack jeered, but in good humour. Mordin said, "I advised no ingestion!"

Joker choked on his laughter and started to cough. Jack slapped him on the back, though not a hard as she could. Tali twittered. Jacob's eyes bugged out. Miranda looked disgusted. Zaeed leered like a dirty old man. Kasumi's grin could be seen beneath her hood. Samara remained placid and Thane was stoically calm.

The Commander and the Officer looked like they wished they died of anaphylactic shock.

As Joker regained his breath, he threw out a line to the Commander, drowning in her embarrassment, "Hey, Commander, we all know how much sugar you dump in your tea anyway. Now we just know why." Even Shepard snorted at this. She patted Garrus' hand. It was bound to come out anyway.

"Yeah yeah yeah," she waved it off, embarrassment subsided. "I always liked my tea sweet. So, Thane!" she exclaimed much more enthusiastically than she ever felt toward the assassin. "What about you?"

The drell turned his fathomless eyes on her. "_Siha_, what was the question?"

Shepard groaned inwardly. Not this '_siha_' thing again. Did he seriously think she couldn't look things up on the extranet like any other person in the galaxy? Still, not a good time to argue with the crew. "What's your favourite food, Thane?" she asked politely, praying he wouldn't go into an eidetic memory episode. They always gave her migraines.

"It is round, flat. The smell fills the air. Succulent pieces of different spicy meats atop blanket of snowy white cheese and tomato puree. I bite into it, savouring each chewy morsel. It is bliss."

Oh, damn, maybe she could find whatever Dr. Chakwas used to shoot Kaidan up with during his migraine spells. Shepard blinked several times, rubbing her temples. "Um, Thane?"

"Yes, _Siha_?"

"Did you eat that on the Citadel?"

"Yes."

"It's called pizza. It's a human food. We find it divine, too."

Thane looked coolly surprised at Shepard. She laughed, joined by Joker, Jack, Jacob, Kasumi, and even Miranda. "Your people make some fine dishes."

"Yeah, we're not all a bad lot." She turned to the asari justicar, "Samara, if you don't mind me saying, you've been around longer than any of us. What is your favourite food?"

Samara turned her cool blue eyes on the Commander. "I have given up such luxuries when I became a justicar. I eat what is given to me. I accept it as my fate."

For the umpteenth time that night, Shepard wanted to slap herself upside the head. She shared a pained glance with Joker, but decided not to press the justicar for more. "Uh, right. I think you mentioned that before.. So Grunt! I know you've really only had what's been on this ship, but did you get any imprints about good krogan food?"

Grunt poked at the remains of his protein pack. "I remember the scratching voice telling me of fresh varren meat, of slippery scaly hide and fresh blood-"

Shepard waved her hands frantically at Grunt. "Okay, okay, we get the idea! We'll see if we can, uh, replace that with a better memory soon!"

She turned to Tali, smiling at her friend. "Well, I know quarians have exquisite shawls and some pretty sexy dance moves I'd equate with belly-dancing," she held her hand as though on cue to block Garrus' question. "But what about food? I've only even seen you eat nutrient paste. Can't you eat anything of Garrus' food supply?"

Tali sighed through her envirosuit. "Well, technically, I could, Shepard, but through this suit, it's so hard. Nutrient paste is just the easiest thing to consume. Perhaps one day... but, no." Shepard just nodded respectfully. She would never speak of Tali's father's betrayal in front of the rest of the crew and his promise of a restored home world.

A silence fell over the mess hall. Everyone had finished eating. But one questioned remained.

"So, Commander, if you could eat anything in the galaxy right now, what would it be? I promise to mock whatever choice you make, even if I agree with it." Joker grinned at her before the silence turned melancholy.

Shepard kicked back her chair again, balancing it on its hind legs. "Oh, that's easy. A deli duo with a side of extra-crispy _latkes_, no sour cream or applesauce, and an egg cream."

"A _what_?" was the chorus she heard back.

She landed her chair down again with a hard thud. "_Oy vey ist mir_!" All the crew heard was "is me!" There were incessant taps on omni-tools, but Shepard just grinned. "I love screwing with your translators. What I said was, a deli duo. That's two steaming sandwiches, one of corned beef, one of pastrami, on rye, with deli mustard- the yellow spicy kind," with a grin to Kasumi, "and fried almost- almost- but not quite to the point of burnt- potato pancakes with a drink called an egg cream, which is made up of neither eggs nor cream. Just seltzer water, chocolate syrup, and milk."

Miranda huffed, "Typical. Ethnic food two centuries old from your home city."

Shepard jerked her chin defiantly at Miranda. "At least I don't come from a colony of convicts."

"That was four hundred and fifty years ago!"

Jack elbowed Joker, who grunted in pain. "I always knew the ice princess was all an act. She's just a fucking pussy with a-" Shepard interrupted Jack, worried at the noise Joker made. "Hey, Joker, let's get a look at those ribs."

"Aww, Commander..."

"Seriously, I know I'm no medic, but I can bind them up."

"I can assist!" Mordin chimed in.

Joker groaned. "Why do you always pick on me, Commander?"

Commander Rachel Shepard rose from her abused chair, ignoring the remains of the protein packs scattered on the table, but giving Garrus a quick caress on the mandible as she passed him. "Because I loathe you so very, very much. C'mon now, into med-bay. Mordin?"

The salarian doctor rose and followed the Commander and the pilot into the med-bay. The rest of the crew scattered throughout the empty ship, looking for ways and means to kill a few hours.

Except for Garrus, who tapped something into his omni-tool. He seemed to remember hearing about a very famous restaurant- no, it was called something else, that word she used- 'deli' - opening a branch on the Citadel. Ah, there it was. The ad vid ran on his omni-tool as a holo. "Katz's Delicatessen. Since 1888 Earth Common Era. It showed a black and white still picture of a human soldier kissing a girl from the mid-20th century with the slogan _Send a salami to your boy in the army! _underneath. The picture morphed into an human Alliance soldier in kissing an asari maidan with the slogan changing to '_Send a salami to your boy or girl in the Alliance!_ The pictures cleared with text reading: Now opened in the Upper Wards!"

Garrus saved the ad vid to his omni-tool. If they survived this suicide run, the Commander deserved her favourite meal.

* * *

A/N: Katz's name and slogan (and newly made up one) used without permission. I hope they still let me eat there. And, why, yes, there is another reference to Katz's in this fic! The fake orgasm from 'When Harry Met Sally'.

_Oy vey ist mir_ is Yiddish for 'o' woe is me'. Commonly used as a refrain when someone is annoyed, sad, disgruntled, depressed, etc. Often just shortened to '_oy vey'_. Since '_ist mir_' is German, I figured it would translate.


End file.
